From 6 to 7 March, the Executive Director attended as the GRAAD Burkina representative the “The African Evidence Informed Policy Forum” under the invitation of the Think Tank Initiative (The Think Tank Initiative is helping to strengthen 43 policy research institutions in 20 developing countries over 10 years through a mix of core funding and support for capacity development).

This forum brought together about an hundred participants including think tank representatives, young researchers, as well as civil society actors, donors, policymakers, academics, and members of the private sector.

The Forum has explored how best policy researchers, civil society actors, policymakers, academics and members of the private sector can bring timely, relevant, and reliable new knowledge in order to bear on policy decisions. It has also seek to understand how different actors engaged in evidence to policy processes in African contexts can work together to foster a culture using social and economic research and evidence in policymaking.